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You are probably wondering where I’ve been…actually, scratch that, you’ve probably forgotten all about me!

I have shamelessly abandoned this blog due to the massive commitments of my other blog, The Paperbook Blog. I would like to say that I am determined to make more time for this blog, but we both know that’s just not true. So, it is with regret that I am shutting this bad boy down, to hopefully be re-opened again in the future.

I really suggest you pop over to The Paperbook Blog if you haven’t already, and check it out. I am currently publishing an online magazine out of that blog, called The Paperbook Collective. Click here for issue one. Issue two is due to be released in 48 hours time, so stay tuned.

Whether you are a photographer, a designer, an artist, writer or poet, your work could be featured in The Paperbook Collective. I accept submissions from all over the world, so there is no reason YOU can’t be included in issue three!!

Why am I raving on about this guy? Because he created his own award, and then blessed me with it! It is quite an impressive award, I must say.

He asks us to boast about ourselves, because we’re friggin awesome. This is a really hard task for me, as I live in fear of mockery about my work, both my photography and my writing. I wake up each day thinking that someone is going to jump on here and say ‘What were you thinking? You can’t write! Your photography’s crap! Get back behind the coffee machine where you belong!’

But I digress. I think the fact that I am finally on here, sharing both my writing and my photography with the world, shows that my confidence is getting better and I am starting to believe that while I may not yet be ‘friggin awesome’, I am at the very least ‘frig-awe’. The ‘gin-some’ will come one day.

So, who out there in the blogosphere do I think is pretty friggin awesome? Well, everyone that I follow, for a start. But I’m going to throw this out to a few of my faves, and I’m sure it will make it’s way around to the rest of you soon.

Again, I would nominate hundreds more of you if time and patience allowed, but unfortunately those two things are sorely lacking in my life at the moment. There is another reason that I chose these six, and that is because they have all been incredibly supportive of my blogs, both this one and The Paperbook Blog. That’s not to say that there aren’t many more of you that have been equally as supportive, and believe me when I say I appreciate every single person who reads, likes or comments on anything I post.

After witnessing a particularly harsh and unnecessary attack on someone’s blog today, I just want to put some positivity and encouragement out into the WordPress atmosphere. What I love most about this place is just how supportive everyone is of each other, re-blogging, sharing and promoting blog’s we love. It is one of the most encouraging things that can be done for anyone who is trying to achieve anything with their blog, be it forging a new career or simply having a place to vent.

Sahm asked us as part of this award to state one thing that makes us happy, and for me today it’s you, my fellow bloggers. So at the risk of sounding overly sentimental: keep encouraging one another, keep reading other’s work, share and promote what you love and if you see something you don’t like, just scroll past it. It’s not hard to do.

The humble sunset. Probably one of the most beautiful, most photographed phenomenon’s the world over. Is it possible to get sick of those ever changing mystical colours as they slowly paint the sky?

I am forever taking photos of sunsets. They are all similar yet they are all so vastly different. These were taken on the inlet by my parents house. Only in the month’s of May and September does the sun set in the perfect position for us to capture it, although it does its best the rest of the year too. Do yourself a favour today. Step outside and capture your sunset.

We are getting these Winter days at the moment where the temperature drops to 5 degrees Celsius at night, but hovers between 16-20 degrees during the day with not a cloud in sight. While this is spelling doom for my poor garden (hand watering in June, unheard of!) it is making for some gorgeous sunny Winter days. I took a little stroll yesterday around what is unremarkably called ‘Big Swamp’ in the heart of our city. To me it is more than a ‘swamp’, it is a gorgeous playground for all sorts of wildlife. There are plenty of beautiful birds hopping around the mangroves and swamp grasses. Amongst the greens and browns bright colours pop.The birds are in constant competition for these privileged spots on what I imagine was once some sort of jetty. Now the perfect spot for sunning birds. The scent of wattle fills the air. Getting ready to dive for fish. Hiding out amongst the grasses. Leafless branches are the only real sign of the winter season.

I just had to put an explanation mark at the end of celebration! It didn’t look right without it. It feels like a million years since I last celebrated something, or had reason to celebrate. A year of saving/study doesn’t really go hand in hand with wild, out-there celebrations, even my birthday was skipped over. A flurry of meaningless Facebook birthday wishes from people I haven’t seen or spoken to in years was the only thing that separated it from any other day.

So I hit the archives to remind myself what celebrating felt like, and I found these shots. Every year at Christmas there is a street in my city that goes all out with Christmas lights. And I mean, ALL OUT. The street is over a kilometre long and basically every house gets decked out in fluro magic. People flock from all over the city in the week before Christmas to tour the lights, cars clog the area which is patrolled and controlled by police men, that is how big the event has become.

It is a very cool display of community spirit in an age where community spirit is almost non-existent, a blatant and unapologetic outrageous celebration.

I deliberately left the flash off to capture some of the feeling of the night, everything was in total darkness, lit only by the majestic displays of Christmas lights on the houses. See some more Celebration! at The Daily Post.

I might be a bit late to the party with this one but as the old saying goes, ‘better late than…’ whatever. This is my contribution to Sue’s challenge over at A Word In Your Ear.

Each week she picks a word from the dictionary to challenge us and this week the word is ‘metallic’. So I dug up some photos of some beautiful metal sculptures that I stumbled upon in the Dunedin Botanical Gardens, New Zealand.

The sculptures were life size, incredibly detailed depictions of Peter Pan. They looked completely at home amongst the incredible flowers and manicured lawns of the Botanic Gardens. Tinkerbell whispering endless secrets to Peter Pan. The Lost Boys were curled up amongst the roots of the tree stump Peter Pan stood upon. The sculpture was decorated with all sorts of beautiful woodland creatures, such as this little guy. He was no bigger than a matchbox. To one side of Peter was this gorgeous sculpture of Wendy, Michael and John Darling, flying off to Neverland. I thought this plaque was the perfect surreal touch to the entire masterpiece.